CAIRO - Egypt's Supreme Administrative Court on Saturday lifted a ban on the operations of Ober and Karim, which faced strong opposition from traditional taxi drivers, a judicial source and lawyer said.

A lower administrative court withdrew Ober and its main rival, Karim, in March 2018, after 42 taxi drivers filed a lawsuit.

The plaintiffs argued that the two companies used private cars as taxis, and that the two companies were registered as a communications center and an Internet company respectively, but the Cairo Court of Urgent Matters said last April that the ruling should be suspended and that the two companies should be allowed to continue until a final court order Which accepted the resumption of the two companies on Saturday.

Egypt is one of the largest markets in the Middle East, with 157,000 drivers in 2017 and 4 million users since it launched its service there in 2014, Ober said. Last week, Ober reached an agreement with the Egyptian tax authority to pay VAT, "It has been pushing it since March 2018.